


Happy Beginnings

by tymedfire



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen, Light Angst, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, barely there, very light
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 07:32:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15165731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tymedfire/pseuds/tymedfire
Summary: And if the guards outside the royal chambers heard squealing and crying and laughing from their two monarchs well into the night, well, they just smiled to themselves and didn’t mention it to anyone.





	Happy Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this finished for like a month but I couldn't think of a title, so it hasn't been posted, but... I got frustrated, so here it is. The title might be changed if I ever think of one I like. The current title is basically just "what reduced Gwen back to a babbling mess like in season one" and... yeah.
> 
> Update: I FOUND MY ORIGINAL TITLE!!!!!!!! Previously titled "Babbling Reduction"

“What’s all this then?” Arthur asked. He’d just walked into his chambers to find the whole room awash in candlelight, a lavish dinner on the table, and his wife sitting at the foot of the bed. She looked beautiful, and she was grinning in a nervous way that he hadn’t seen in years. She looked slightly deranged, if he were being honest. Not that he would tell her that. He did have  _ some _ self-preservation skills. “Are you alright?”

She stared at him as he moved slowly closer. She opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it, then opened it again, all the while wringing her hands nervously. Her breathing sped up and she looked as if she were about to cry. Alarmed, Arthur rushed to her crouch in front of her and asked, “Guinevere?”

“I’m pregnant!” She blurted, then immediately clapped her hands over her mouth, eyes wide. Arthur froze. 

“Oh, no! I didn’t mean to say that! Well, I did, but I had everything all planned out, I wasn’t meant to tell you first! I’m doing it all wrong, and now when our child asks how I told you, there won’t be a good story, no long dinner, no nothing, just me and my big mouth, spitting out right-”

“You’re pregnant?” Arthur asked, voice barely more than a whisper. He hadn’t moved an inch. He stared at her face, now gone tight with her lips pressed together nervously. He moved his hand up to her cheek. “You’re pregnant?” 

She pressed her hand to her husband’s and nodded. Slowly, disbelievingly, a grin spread across Arthur’s face. “You’re pregnant. Oh my god, you’re pregnant!” He laughed, carefree and delighted, and picked his wife up and spun her around. Finally, she let herself relax and gave a tearful laugh, clinging to her husband. He put her down and held her face in his hands, wiping away her tears with his thumbs even as tears began to run down his own cheeks. “I’m pregnant,” she whispered. 

“You’re pregnant.” Arthur kissed Guinevere gently, lovingly. It was a kiss filled with promise and hope and joy and a little bit of fear. It was one neither of them would ever forget.

Once they broke apart they stared at each other for a few moments, tears streaming down both their faces, before Arthur broke the silence once again. 

“Oh my god, we’re going to be  _ parents _ .”

And if the guards outside the royal chambers heard squealing and crying and laughing from their two monarchs well into the night, well, they just smiled to themselves and didn’t mention it to anyone.

 

\--

 

Though Arthur would never admit it, Merlin was like the brother that Arthur never had, so they decided to tell Merlin and Elyan together before they told the rest of the Round-Table Knights and the court.

Elyan looked slightly nervous as Merlin escorted him into the King’s chambers. Once there, Arthur gestured for him to join he and Guinevere at the table. When Merlin tried to leave, Arthur grabbed his arm and said, “You, too.” For once, Merlin didn’t argue.

“Is there a problem, my lord?” Elyan asked. 

“No, no. There’s no problem, Elyan, and please, let us drop the titles for now. This is a happy occasion.” He glanced at his queen, who sat beside him, holding his hand and practically vibrating with excitement. He looked back at Elyan, who looked less nervous and more intrigued now, and then at Merlin, who was watching both of his monarchs with a small smile. “We’ve called you both here to tell you that… well…”

“Gwen’s pregnant?” Merlin guessed. The others gaped at him. 

“H-how did you know that? Who told you?” Arthur demanded. (He did not sputter, for he was a king, and he was above such things) (He also was not disappointed that he wasn’t the one to tell his best friend about his unborn child)

Merlin grinned delightedly at them and had the audacity to _laugh_. Arthur was going to put him in the stocks for a month. He would have the person who told him there for two.  “Nobody told me. You forget I am a physician. I could tell. Gwen glows.” He smiled fondly at Gwen, that huge, dopey smile that made him look like a bit of an idiot and made his eyes almost completely disappear, but that always let Arthur know that Merlin was truly and unabashedly happy.

“When did you figure that out? You certainly never said anything!”

“About a week ago. Who do you think suggested to Gaius that Gwen needed an examination?”

“You- you prat!” Gwen exclaimed, shocking the men around her. Elyan still hadn’t closed his mouth. “You knew before I did!” She didn’t sound like she was actually angry, just a bit miffed. 

“Did you just call me a prat?” If possible, Merlin looked even more delighted. Arthur really would never understand him.

“Wait a second, hold on. You’re going to have a baby?” Elyan finally broke his stupor and looked at his sister with wide eyes. Gwen grinned at him, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. 

“You’re going to be an uncle, Elyan.” Elyan stared at her for a second before laughing and, after tripping over his chair in his haste to get around the table, pulled his sister into a tight hug. He then shook Arthur’s hand before going back to his sister and hugging her again. 

While the two siblings celebrated, Merlin moved around the table to stand at Arthur’s side. “Congratulations, Arthur. I know how long you’ve both wanted this. You’re going to be a wonderful father.” Arthur can’t even bring himself to be surprised that Merlin knew a deep desire of his that he’d never actually voiced out loud. He just laughed, exasperated, before sobering and looking at his friend.

“Thank you, Merlin.” Merlin smiled at him before striding over to Gwen and pulling her into a tearful hug. Sometimes Arthur forgot how close Merlin and his wife had always been. He was surprised that Merlin hadn’t started crying yet, but he supposed he’d had more time to let the news settle in. The dollop-head.

Merlin did cry, however, when Gwen asked him to be the baby’s godfather. His eyes got impossibly wide and his head jerked over to Arthur, who nodded seriously and told him that there was nobody he trusted more with his wife and unborn child’s lives, so why not? Merlin opened his mouth, but couldn’t seem to be able to form words so he just nodded as tears ran down his face and hugged Gwen, then Arthur before he could even think of stopping him. Elyan grinned as he slapped Merlin on the back. 

Once they had all calmed down, Elyan asked, “Okay, so when are you going to tell the Knights?”

 

\--

 

The day Queen Guinevere gave birth to twins the entire kingdom celebrated. The labor had been long and painful, leaving more than just the mother and children tired. Arthur had sat outside his wife’s chambers with Merlin beside him and his most trusted knights a little way down the hall, giving the two friends a bit of privacy. Merlin had calmed Arthur down and reassured him multiple times over the course of the night, especially when Gwen’s screams could be heard and Merlin all but had to hold Arthur back from charging into the room. Once a handmaiden came out to tell them that Gwen had requested Arthur’s presence (which was wholly unnecessary. They had all heard her screaming for Arthur to  _ get his royal ass in there and hold her hand because this was all his fault and he needed to feel the pain too _ ), the job of comforting and reassuring had gone to Gwaine, who had sat beside a quietly freaking out Merlin. 

None of them would admit it, but the knights had all been wringing their hands all night. Especially Elyan, who had needed constant reassurances from Gwaine and Percival. Leon had been no help whatsoever, as he had been almost as anxious as Elyan.

Merlin was the third person to hold Arthur’s daughter, and the fourth to hold his son. He fell in love with both of them immediately, and he knew that he would protect both of them just as fiercely as he protected Arthur. 

To Merlin’s great amusement, Arthur became a complete mother-hen, even worse than Gwen. Either child so much as whimpered and he was at their side, panicked and trying to soothe them. It took weeks for Arthur to let either one of them out of his sight, much to Gwen and Merlin’s amusement and his advisors' chagrin. 

The Knights helped Gwen a lot during the first few weeks after the babies were born, but she was pretty sure that was just because they all wanted to be near the kids. Every one of them was star-struck upon meeting her children and, after getting over the initial fear that they would break the tiny humans, they doted on them relentlessly. She’d had to get on to Percival for never letting them self-soothe; any time either of them was upset he was there a step behind Arthur to hold and rock them.

One day, a couple months after they were born, the kids were both sick and refusing to sleep. They had been crying for hours and Gwen, Arthur, and Merlin had tried everything they could think of to get them to sleep. Just when they were about to give up, Leon surprised them all by singing both twins to sleep. From that day forward, when either of them was sick, Leon was the only person who could get them to sleep.

Elyan carved them both their first hard toys. Gwaine always snuck them sweets from the kitchen. And Merlin, once the ban on magic was lifted when the twins were five, distracted them when the need arose with conjured butterflies and balls of light.

  
  


\--

 

Nine months after his children were born, Arthur wondered how he could be so stupid as to bring two children into this world when his sister was still out there. Three hours after the castle was attacked, Arthur cursed Morgana’s name and flew through the halls to the queen’s chambers. Twelve minutes after he found out his daughter was missing, Arthur roared around the castle, ordering search parties and demanding his horse be saddled. Two minutes after he was on his horse he found out that Merlin was missing, too. Two days later, when he had found no trace of his daughter or his servant, he held his wife as she cried and Gaius tried to reassure them that Merlin and their daughter were more than likely together, and that Merlin would sooner kill himself than see her hurt.

Two weeks after the castle was attacked, Merlin walked back into the courtyard with a still-healing scar down his face and neck, and the princess in his arms. Three minutes later, Arthur and Gwen finally held their daughter again. One minute after that, Arthur pulled Merlin into a hug and thanked God for the day Merlin walked into Camelot. Thirty seconds after that, Arthur voiced the thought that he’d had over eighteen months ago. 

“I knew you were the best person to be my children’s godfather. Thank you, my friend.”


End file.
